Balance Roundup 14 November 2013

It has been ages since I did a balance roundup, and I feel a tiny bit like it is cheating to do one during the challenge, but there have been some fantastic things I have run across recently, and I wanted to share them.

The first thing I wanted to share was this incredible post from Dr. Susan Silk and Barry Goldman. They write about the “Ring Theory of Kvetching” that they developed during Susan’s experience with breast cancer. This model is how they hope that people will respond to an illness or to other crises. I’ll let you read their story, but here’s one piece of wisdom: “When you are talking to a person in a ring smaller than yours, someone closer to the center of the crisis, the goal is to help. . .Listening is more important than talking.”

In a similar vein, Rea Ginsberg wrote this piece about the importance of compassion at the end of life. I think that the piece offers valuable insight to people in other situations as well, because compassion is a hugely important element, and one that all of us could offer more–to ourselves as well as others. I also appreciate the resource list.

Dr. Allison Andrews writes for parents of quirky kids, but her post about the “shoulds” we all subject ourselves to is useful to parents of all kids–or people who aren’t parents.

And this last link is a new experience for me. I don’t know much about Tumblr, and I have never shared a Tumblr feed before. But I got a chance to talk with Christopher Snider, the creator of the My Diabetes Secret Tumblr, and I am so impressed by the power of this blog. It offers people with diabetes the chance to share a secret they have been carrying about their experience with diabetes. And the secrets provide a window into some of the pain and shame that many people living with chronic illness (diabetes and otherwise face). Sharing secrets can be a powerful tool for healing and for reducing isolation, so I hope that this project continues. And maybe it will be the inspiration for other communities to create similar projects.

In the spirit of sharing–please feel free to share your favorite resource of the week in the comments.